PENTICTON — There’s an Okanagan connection to an international story about a Canadian woman that gave birth on a plane to Japan.
A 23-year-old Canadian woman, Ada Guan, gave birth to a baby girl aboard an Air Canada flight from Calgary to Tokyo after going into labour over the Pacific Ocean on Sunday.
READ MORE: Canadian woman gives birth on Air Canada flight en route to Japan
The baby’s father is a former Penticton resident, Wes Branch.
“We just thought she had a bad stomach ache, or cramps or ulcer or something,” said Branch.
The two live in Victoria and had been dating for about a year, but they had no idea Guan was 37 weeks pregnant.
“Her belly wasn’t even big. She just thought she was gaining a little bit of a weight. She didn’t think anything out of it.”
READ MORE: ‘She told me, ‘Something fell out of me’…then I heard, ‘Wah’
Branch’s parents, Sandra and David, still reside in Penticton. They also said the baby came as a complete surprise to the couple.
“She didn’t know she was pregnant,” said Sandra. “She was having stomach pains on the plane about two hours into the flight. She didn’t know what was happening to her. So they put her in business class and there were two doctors on the plane. They hooked her up to an IV and gave her some Tylenol but that didn’t help and all of a sudden there was this baby.”
Branch says the baby is in perfect health and the couple have since left the hospital.
“They’re not going to tour like they originally planned, they’re not going to be seeing too much of anything there,” said David.
The child’s name is Chloe and is the couple’s first child.
“We’re still in shock,” said Sandra.
“This is our first grandchild and we couldn’t be happier.”
– With files from Angela Jung
Comments